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V-285680

CAT II (Medium)

The operating system must implement address space layout randomization to protect its memory from unauthorized code execution.

Rule ID

SV-285680r1272152_rule

STIG

Rancher Government Solutions (RGS) Harvester Government GPOS Security Technical Implementation Guide

Version

V1R1

CCIs

CCI-002824

Discussion

Some adversaries launch attacks with the intent of executing code in nonexecutable regions of memory or in memory locations that are prohibited. Security safeguards employed to protect memory include, for example, data execution prevention and address space layout randomization. Data execution prevention safeguards can either be hardware-enforced or software-enforced with hardware providing the greater strength of mechanism. Examples of attacks are buffer overflow attacks.

Check Content

Verify the Harvester Government OS (SLEM 5) is configured to implement Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR).

1. On all applicable nodes, access the node terminal with appropriate privileges and execute the following command:

sysctl kernel.randomize_va_space

Expected output:
kernel.randomize_va_space = 2

If the command returns no output or the value of "kernel.randomize_va_space" is not set to "2", this is a finding.

Note: A value of "2" enables full ASLR, providing maximum protection against memory exploitation techniques.

Fix Text

Configure the Harvester Government OS (SLEM 5) to enable Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR).

1. Access the node terminal with appropriate privileges.

2. Set the runtime value for ASLR:

sysctl -w kernel.randomize_va_space=2

3. If "2" is not the system's default value, configure the setting to persist across reboots by adding or updating the following entry in /etc/sysctl.d/99-stig.conf file:

"kernel.randomize_va_space = 2" 

4. Apply the persistent configuration:

sysctl --system